Luck can seem like such an ephemeral thing until something happens that leaves such a lasting impression that you perhaps stay up at night, wondering what could have happened. Near death experiences are, perhaps, the pinnacle of this feeling.
Someone asked “People who escaped death by complete luck. What happened?” and netizens who have gone through close calls shared their stories. So get comfortable as you read through, prepare yourself for a few shivers, upvote your favorite examples and be sure to comment your thoughts and similar stories below.
I lived in the attic of apartment of an old Victorian house. I kept hearing noises in the walls until one night I woke up to a room full of bats. Needless to say I didn’t want to live in an apartment infested with bats - so some friends of mine said I could live in their extra room. I moved really quickly because, bats. Ugh. Anyway, 2 days later the entire old Victorian house went up in flames and burned to the ground. I thought, whew, got outta there just in time. But that wasn’t the end of it. A few days after that some detectives showed up on campus where I had class and asked to speak with me. They started asking me all these questions about whether or not I knew this guy who lived in the basement of the old house. I explained that I may have said ’hi’ in passing a few times, but that was it. Well, it turns out that the guy was obsessed with me - moved into the basement of the building because I lived there - and he freaked out and SET THE FIRE when I left because he didn’t know where I went. I had NO IDEA. They found a bunch of pictures of me and all kinds of creepy s**t in his belongings. Luckily no one was hurt in the fire and he went to prison for arson (which carries a stiffer penalty than stalking- smh).
I love bats now. Bats are my friends. Thank you, bats.The light turned green at the intersection. I started to move forward, but the driver in the lane next to me honked and hit his brakes. I hit my brakes too and looked around. Just then, a car blew through the red light going 45+ miles an hour. Had I continued through the intersection, my little hatchback might have been T-boned on the driver's side by a much larger vehicle. Thank goodness that other driver saw the car about to run through the light and honked his horn or I might have been flattened.Cancer Stage 4 Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia.
Doctors told my parents I had a 1% chance of survival over the next 6 months and basically to prepare for my funeral.
Well little ol me probably sold my soul to the devil because I beat the s**t here 30+years later and went from a blonde haired kid to a red haired adult (hence the sold soul)Three times come to mind for me.
First - drunk driver going 100mph+ hit my vehicle. They were coming down the wrong side of the highway that late evening. I swerved and woke up in the floor of my truck.
Second - working in a restaurant, glasses straight out of the dishwasher. Grabbed two out of the rack for a table, and one sheared at the base, fell and hit my wrist. 3 tourniquets at different spots on my arm later, they were able to stop the bleeding. I was wearing a watch with a metal band, and that stopped the glass from cutting further.
Third - found out I had Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. Dr said another 2-3 months without treatment, and I’d have been dead. Finished chemo last month and in remission.
Anyone know a good gift for their guardian angel? Mine has been working overtime…I attended a meeting in the south tower of the World Trade Center on Monday, September 10, 2001. That meeting had originally been scheduled for the following day.Back in the year of 2000, 7 year old me and friends were outside exploring. That days location happened to be a power station. Older 9y boy lost his life on top of a machine, electricity burned a hole through him. I lost both my hands trying to climb up and help him. Amputated below my elbows.
Power entered both arms, excited in armpit one side, neck other side. Power never went through my chest or I'd be dead aswell.My frat bro’s mom was in the Chi Omega house at FSU in 1979. Ted Bundy broke into the house while they were sleeping and killed the two girls in the room across the hall from hers and seriously beat up two other women. She had to testify at his trial. What saved her? She locked her door.My only example...
We went to party at Paul Smith college, my friend's favorite cousin was a student there. Bonfire, booze, and someone had the bright idea to bring out a snowmobile.
I was gonna ride on it but had to go to the bathroom. I guess I took too long because he asked a different girl to ride with him. She did.
They were both killed like 2 minutes later.
It was traumatizing.
It blew my mind for a long time. Had I just held my pee in, I'm the one currently in a coffin instead of Kristine.Was 16 in Bermuda, riding my moped into town when I came up to a bus stopped at a red light. I came to a stop, and then, as is tradition, I scooted around the bus to be at the front of the traffic. No more than 10 seconds later a second bus plowed into the back of first bus at 30-40 mph. I would have been pancaked, no question.
Apparently the second bus driver had had a medical event, and lost consciousness. I just sat on the side of the road for 30 minutes and looked at the trees, contemplating my mortality.Being born at 26 weeks. Doctors gave me a 10% chance of survival and somehow I beat the 90% odds against me.I'll try to make a long story short. My ex-wife and her boyfriend she had behind my back tried to hire someone to kill me so that she could have my life insurance and there wouldn't be a custody battle over our daughter like there would be if she just left me. Luckily for me, the guy they hired to do the job was an undercover deputy working a completely unrelated case against the d**g selling gang her boyfriend belonged to.
Yeah. . .finding out about all this was a nice surprise. I had absolutely no clue.
The boyfriend got 10 years because the gun he gave the deputy to kill me with was stolen, and he had other stuff related to the gang on him. She got 5 years for conspiracy and was released after 3.One time i went on a blind date with a guy and everything went great. We wanted to go to his apartment but suddenly my mother called me that my dad is in the hospital so i left my date there and rushed to the hospital. After that i didnt hear from the guy but few weeks later the police knocked on my door and i needed to go to the station because they wanted to ask some questions about my date. Turned out he already r*ped 4 girls and one of them died after they met.Sudden Cardiac Death at work. Co-worker gave me CPR, paramedics got my heart beating again. 5% survival rate.
I ate a lot more ice cream once I was healthy, again.I was at an indoor shooting range testing a potato cannon (don't ask). I was leaning against the stall wall with my hand behind my head while my buddy took a shot with it. Suddenly, I felt a pinch/burn sensation on my wrist. I took a look at my arm to see blood streaming from a half inch deep hole on my wrist. The idiot in the stall next to me wasn't sure if his handgun was empty, so he did the most logical thing. He pointed it at the stall wall and pulled the trigger. The bullet grazed my wrist, about 3 inches from my head. That's the only time I've ever seen an RSO tackle someone. When i was dumb kid of ten years old a guy in a s****y car asked me to hop in and help him find his lost puppy. My dumb a*s was about to get in when my little bro happened to ride by on a bike and started screaming. He probably saved my life.Was swimming at an Australian beach, stupidly not between the flags, got smacked by a rogue wave and was stuck in a riptide, I was knocked out cold and pretty much drowned, still to this day I don't know how I got to shore, when I woke I was up on the wet sand of the beach and had 5 jellyfish around me.I was at the Boston Marathon, watching my sister run the race. I’m from the west coast and there’s this incredible hot chocolate place that they only have on the east coast (Max Brenner - so good). I told my husband and brother in law that I wanted to go there and then we could watch her finish the race since it was next to the finish line. We were a block away when my BIL checked her location and we realized we would miss her if we didn’t watch right then. We cheered her on and then 45 seconds later the bomb went off right next to Max Brenner. Basically my sister’s race time saved us from being at the center of the attack.On an island called Cat Cay in the Bahamas, there is an area called the Flats, where the tide rolls out extremely fast for a mile. You can walk on the sand and find incredible things (sand dollars, crabs, shells). The water moves out so fast, fish are lying on the sand still alive.
The tide comes back in just as fast. Like a tsunami of water. I was 8, out there with my mom. She forgot that day was daylight savings time and misjudged. Thought we had another hour. The water came in and we started running. But before we knew it, we were up to our necks and the suction out to sea was so strong, it ripped off both our water shoes and her shirt. She carried me on her back, one step at a time, staying completely calm. The water was up to her ears.
When we got to shore, we both lied on the beach completed exhausted. She could barely walk.
Moms are incredible.I was in the passenger seat of my dad's small sports car (low to the ground) when a crowbar came off a work truck in front of us and flew into the windshield of our car. Somehow it stopped a few inches away from my face and I luckily happened to be looking down, which meant all the glass that would have ended up on my face was all in my hair instead. I always think about how lucky I was, I can't explain why that crowbar stopped half in and half out of the car. Crazy to think that if it didn't stop it would have hit me square in the forehead.Street light collapsed on me (my neck) and onto the face of the girl in front of me on a 5th grade field trip. I was surprisingly fine, while the girl in front of me got helicoptered out. She made a full recovery though!Did not inherit the genetic mutation that caused both of my siblings to have a cardiac arrest at 30… it was a 50/50 chance.One day I was walking through the streets of my city when I decided to change my usual route to surprise my friend for her birthday. As I was on a side street with little traffic, she heard the sound of an explosion coming from behind a nearby building. Frightened, I turned around and saw a car that had just lost control due to engine failure and was crashing right where I had been standing seconds before. Thanks to that sudden decision to change path, I escaped death by pure luck.Had a boundary wall of a balcony fall from almost 8 ft right after I walked by under it…. It was a very windy day and I was just enjoying the weather outdoors. Because of the wind a door just banged open in front of me, so I just walked towards it to shut it close and as soon as I walked there the wall just fell right where I was standing. Would have been crushed and died right there just missed by a couple of seconds. But that incident gave me a new perspective about life. Cherish life folks as u never know when ur time comes.While going 100+mph on a motorcycle, I went in-between 2 deer bounding across the street. I fortunately didn't have any time to react or I would've surely hit the second one. Instead I just eased off the throttle to a stop, and took a few minutes to breathe and think about how bad that all could've gone.I was out backpacking with friends on the Washington coast. We didn't get a permit on our way out. A park ranger stopped by our camp and when he saw we didn't have permits he sat with us for a bit while he wrote one for us. We asked him about his job and he was telling us how he had been cleaning up dead marine mammals off the beach all day. That there was the worst case of red tide blooming that he had ever seen. We currently had a pot of mussels cooking on our fire.
If we had gotten a permit, he probabltly wouldn't have stopped to talk with us.
If he had come by an hour later, we would have all already eaten the poisoned shellfish.
If he had come by the next morning, he might have just found a pile of bodies.The guy who set fire to my house used lighter fluid on a wet mattress he found behind the house. It's because he used the wet mattress that the fire spread slow enough for us to wake up, see the smoke, and call the fire department. Fire department told us that, had the mattress been dry, we'd be dead because he put it up against the side of the house with the gas line. So not just burnt to death, confetti'd. I guess I'm thankful for the stupidity of cr*ck heads.Was driving home from a party with a friend in the car. Had a cop car on random patrol following me down to a main intersection.
Avoiding any sort of risk of getting a ticket, I was being extra cautious when waiting for the light to change.
My side had only just changed to green and since I was slower than normal moving off the line, it stopped me getting plowed by the semi that blew through the other part of the intersection on a red at full speed.
I was just stopped there in stunned silence. Even the cops took a minute or two to reflect on what had happened before they peeled off and lit that truck up.
I ended up coming back along the road where the cops had finally managed to pull that driver over. 5km away from where the incident happened.Tornado passed over my car on the freeway in Texas.Worked at my local mall while in college. I’ve always prided myself on never being late. I was going in early to go to my bank which was at the main entrance. Series of ridiculous events began to happen and I found myself running late, which really frustrated me-again, rarely, if ever happened. I drove quickly to find police cars, flying past me. As I approached the mall, I saw the cops swarming the main entrance, where I was headed. A woman had entered the main entrance with a rifle began shooting as she entered, continued as she walked through the mall. She killed 3, wounded 7, some critically. No doubt I would have been in the line of fire had I not been late. She spent decades in jail and was recently released.Got admitted to the ER after my potassium levels tested low. They gave me an IV and a couple pills, and then kept me in the hospital a couple days until I was at a normal level and were sure that the medication I was on wasn't lowering that significantly.
The next day, when the doctor came to check on me, he said he did not know anyone with such low potassium in their bloodwork that was still alive.2nd day in Iraq, mortar landed about 100 feet from me. Closer would have been bad. Last day in Iraq, mortar landed 20 feet from a bunch of us, was a dud.I grew up in a rural town in Southern Ontario and took the school bus every day. One afternoon, I got off the bus at my driveway and as I always did, I walked across the road to our mailbox to get the mail. As my school bus drove away, it was partially blocking my view of the opposite lane. As I stepped to the yellow line in the middle of the road, I suddenly stopped as if someone grabbed my backpack to yank me back. Just as I stopped another school bus came flying past me, missing me by only a few inches. I was stunned and couldn't believe it. These buses would drive super fast on those back roads too, had to have been at least 90kmh. Nearly knocked me on my a*s.
I have no idea what stopped me. Intuition? Paranormal? Part of me thinks I died then and there and this is one of many alternate timelines I've skipped through. Had a tree fall on me. I was 2 steps away from being crushed by the trunk.
Paramedics made sure to tell me that while I'm sitting there with a flap of skin hanging off my scalp. Like, thanks, dude. For pointing out I almost died while I was already in shock.I have been close to death 4 times.
First time when I was born. I literally shot out of my mom, and the midwife only just managed to catch me before I hit the floor.
Second time when I was around 8 or 9. I fell from one of those raised sand pens. I landed in a way that should have broken my neck (because in theory I could not have landed beneath the large tree trunk right beside it without hitting the back of my head on it).
Third time I was skiing. I lost control of my skis down a mountain and went off course. I hit a tree really hard. If I hadn't been stopped by that tree, I would have tumbled over the edge and fallen down the mountain.
Fourth time was when I gave birth to my stillborn son. An hour or so after giving birth, I started bleeding a lot and was rushed to the operating room.Not me, but my father tells a story of driving along a bush road in Bouganville before the revolution there. He was in the car with my mom, baby me and my 5yr old brother. There was a cardboard box on the side of the road, blowing a bit in the window, like an empty shipping box type thing, and he was going to run over it to amuse my little brother. At the last moment he pulled away though, worried about there being something side it.
As we drove past he looked back in the rearview mirror and saw two little kids crawl out of the box and look after him as we drove down the road.While white water rafting, my raft was going through rapids when I got ejected from the raft and sent underwater. I swam up and hit my helmet on a rock. It was pretty dark and murky. That is when I realized that I had been pushed by the current either underneath a rock outcrop or into an underwater cave, I'm not really sure which. Trying my best not to panic, I did the only thing I could think of, use my hands to grip the rock and push myself against the current while kicking. After what felt like an eternity underwater, but it was probably no more than about 2 or 3 minutes, I noticed the light was getting brighter, and before I knew it, I had reached the surface. Once at the surface, the current of the rapids shot me downstream, and I floated to the nearest bank of the river to collect myself.
Edit: It has been pointed out that it is unlikely I was underwater for that length of time. I agree that my memory during such a stressful event is probably unreliable, so I will add that the length of time I was underwater was long enough for the rest of my group to become concerned about my wellbeing.
But I would like to say that I don't think I possess any significant ability to hold my breath. I was a fairly fit teenager at the time, but honestly, I think most of you reading this, under those circumstances, would be able to hold your breath for much longer than you thought. Survival instincts are a hell of a thing.Like 12 years old, the main power line from our house to the street power pole caught on fire from a squirrel chewing on it. I saw the fire, parents not home, so I get a cup of water and try throwing it up to the power line to put the fire out. I did this a few times and I couldn't get the water high enough to reach the fire so I called 911 and they made it there within like 10 min. The fire man said I'm lucky the water never made it up there because the current could have traveled back down to me and caused a cardiac arrest. I still think about that from time to time. I wonder why no one cared there was three children home alone all under the age of 12 at 11 on a school day.I live in the Netherlands, so it's common to go to school/work on a bicycle. One day maybe 15 years ago I was going to school and just standing at a red light. It turns green, and for some unknown reason I just don't start riding like I always do. Out of nowhere, a car comes speeding by right in my path where I would've been. I never heard or saw it coming, but the collision would've been nasty.Walking through a dutch town at old years eve, loud bang and 15 cm next to my head a large metal traffic sign stuck in the wall which somebody blew off a pole 25 meters away.
On a holiday with a huge hangover me and a friend decided to swim to the pizzeria on the other side of a 3km wide lake. Halfway we both were completely exhausted and very much undercooled with large purple spots appearing on our bodies. And when we started to be convinced that we'd die a random tourist in a small fishing boat appeared and took us in.
Falling 9 meters down at work, but landed in the only sandpile due to construction works on for the rest a concrete floor.
Sliding with the bike on a wet road and went under a bus from the side and came out in the back without hitting anything.
I should be dead..A wave turned me over while I was about to drown after breaking my neck at the beach. 0/10 experience ♿️♿️Left the gas on when I was little making eggs. My stepfather came back early one day from work. He never did that. Chances are I would have either blown up or died from poisoning.Brain inflammation, “Brain on Fire”, due to medication reaction in my brain ( Lyrica + Prednisone). Went untreated for 10 months led to a week of 4 NDE’s, multiple different hospital misdiagnosis issues, and at least a 4 year recovery period. When finally diagnosed the Dr’s gave my family no hope of a recovery. None. Today I am healthier than ever and offer this - NEVER GIVE UP, NEVER STOP BELIEVING.Had been eating at Luby's in Killeen Tx, every day for lunch.
Skipped lunch one day to finish out the job I was doing.
On my way out of town, I pass Luby's, and it's all taped off with a pickup truck sticking out of the wall. Cops everywhere.
Some guy crashed into the building, got out, and started shooting all the employees and customers.
The truck hit the booth I'd been sitting in all week.Car accident Moped vs Oldsmobile
I was the moped driver. Straight road car turns from the oncoming lane across traffic. Being a new ish motorcycle driver (moped) I knew enough to know I was f****d. But instead of putting it down or turning or anything, I took my hands off the steering and wrapped my head as I impacted (no helmet) inverting both knees on the handlebars, breaking the key off inside My right knee, and dislocation of my right shoulder as I spun into the windshield shattering The windshield, and dislocating my hip on the concrete.
My ignorance saved my life. A seasoned rider would have put the bike down and likely been run over. And my taking the hands off the steering saved my fingers, saved my head and neck (to an extent) and the shoulder (my right was the arm that wrapped my head first and the impact dislocation it would have been my head if I hadn't.
Impact speed was 50 miles per hour. Not a single bone broken but permanently f****d my back. And realistically, I should be dead.Got caught in a flood during a freak storm, the storm knocked out the cable in our neighborhood. so some guy went out for a smoke after the cable went out and heard my friend calling for help and saved us by throwing us a jet ski rope.
We were stuck in this flood for two hours calling for help, but the heavy rain and thunder totally drowned us out, so if it weren't for the cable going out, we would have definitely died.Was supposed to be in the movie theatre in 2012 in Aurora. My wife and I had gone to the midnight showing of Dark Knight in 2008 at the same theatre. So when Rises was going to come out we wanted to do the same. I’m a huge Batman fan. At the time though I was starting my shift at work at 7am. So I couldn’t see myself going to a midnight show and only getting a few hours of sleep. We decided not to go.Semi took the entire side of the car off except my seat. I'm in a passenger seat, and a semi rips the door off, and I'm not even jostled.This was years ago but I still get shivers over it. I was in the Army deployed to the Gulf. We had a short hump back of about 20 kicks but I had hurt my knee the previous day falling of a 113 trying to pee on someone (separate story) Anyway they needed someone to drive a deuce and a half full of water bottles to another unit, offload and take all their trash.
I volunteer just to get out of the road march. Make the drive and start the swapping process. Get finished and the other guys truck is full of boxes of water and mine trash bags. I'm completely full but there is one bag left. He tried and tried to get it in but there was just no room so I told him dude you just have to keep that one. He tossed it in the back of his and we started to leave.
About 10 seconds after we pull away we heard and felt the explosion. We are fine but the other truck is just mangled. Turns out some asshat had picked up what we guess was a bomblet from a cluster bomb and put it in the trash. It was in that last bag. The other two guys in the truck were pretty shaken but the water absorbed most of the blast. Had that last bag made it on my truck I wouldn't be here today.Not death, but I did escape a kidnapping attempt when I was 9. It was Halloween night and I was walking home from trick or treating with my friends down a neighborhood road. I noticed a van tailing me a bit, but as I was 9, I didn’t think much of it. Then the van stopped next to me and shined an extremely bright light in my face to where I couldn’t see anything. I stood there for a moment confused, but then a voice in my head said “RUN”. I bolted into a field in my neighborhood that had tall grass just as someone was grabbing my arm.
I never even told my parents. I just went home and ate my candy. This might be the first time I ever talked about tbh. Again not death related though, but it could have led to that.I was in a train crash. Really badly wounded as I nearly lost both my legs on the spot, both leg arteries broken, almost bled out.
I didn't know that, but apparently during emergencies such as this the responders have to walk through the wreckage and identify people who are done for and those who are worth trying to save. While it totally makes sense it still feels pretty weird that in the condition I was I was probably worth saving just because I was young and fairly fit and healthy at the time, and that a different person could have come to a different conclusion.I was riding my bike, and it had to be a day where it rained. I was already on the highway, and I couldn't get off due to traffic, but when it started picking up, I started to go faster. I didn't see a puddle coming up, so I hit it, lost control, and I somehow managed to slide underneath a milk trailer while my bike got crushed by the semi-truck.I sleep walk/talk.
My house burned down Christmas night when I was 11. It started in my bedroom. There was a crimp in the copper line of the old Humphrey gas heater next to the door. The fire went around the entire bedroom. The bunkbed that I shared with my younger brother was burning.
From what I’ve been told, I had been yelling about it being too hot and woke my parents. When my dad came to investigate, he saw the hallway leading to our room cutoff by the fire. He climbed through our bedroom window to get us out.
I woke up in the front seat of our family station wagon watching our house burn with three crying younger siblings behind me. That old pine house burned fast! It’s the first time I heard the term “lighter wood.”My grandfather was a navigator for B52 over Europe in WW2. Completed 18 missions when the war ended. Was scheduled for a flight back to England from France a month later to catch his boat back home. He got too drunk the night before and missed his plane. The plane and crew crashed in the ocean and they all died. Unfortunately used that as his excuse to be a drunk for the rest of his life.Believe it or not but a big stone flower pot thing fell just an inch behind me from above when I was walking in the ancient town of Split, Croatia. First I heard the noise, then I saw my sister en my mom looking at me in shock. And then when I realized what happened and how if I had walked half a second slower I would have probably died or at least sever brain injury that would’ve required surgery. I actually started crying right there no idea why I guess it was more of a delayed startled reaction and tears were the outlet lol obviously physically I was completely fine but I when think back on it it really changed my outlook on life and death and how it can suddenly all be over because of nothing more than a freak accident.I’ve shared this a few times, but i had a near death experience of drowning when i was a child. my dad was tossing me gently up in the air so i’d have a little splash in my aunt’s pool, and i kept shouting “higher!” like any kid would. but, my dad is not a good dad, so the last time he did it i remember being tossed high enough i could see the roof of my aunt’s house, and in the free-fall i had time to think “this is gonna hurt, i’m sorry daddy”. i didn’t feel the impact, and i woke up under the water but it was *wrong*. i could breathe the water, it was infinite instead of being able to see the walls and touch them after two strokes, and it was dozens of feet deep instead of the three feet it was designed as. i swam, and swam, thinking i was a mermaid and yet aware i was probably dead, because i knew even by then he’d kill me someday, so why be upset he succeeded. probably better for me. i don’t know how long it felt like, an hour? but eventually a big light was seen above me and asked me if i wanted to stay or go, and i said go because i didn’t want to be alive with my family. but for some reason, i backed down and swam to the surface, and it was so hard i almost didn’t make it anyway. when i broke surface, i was visibly drowning and flailing, but i managed to force myself to vomit and cough out the water by sheet panic as all my dad did was smack my back a few times while my aunts and grandma yelled at me for ruining the water. i got tossed out onto the gravel and took myself inside, and that was it. still here i guess, so must be a reason for itWas a student pilot in high school and was supposed to fly one Saturday morning. Was lazy and hit snooze, got to the airport late and my instructor said I was too late to fly.
The student in the time slot after me took off in the same plane I would have flown and the engine failed on take off.My abuser choked me past unconsciousness, presumably until my heart stopped. Then, I guess he realized he didn’t want to lose his plaything or go to jail, so he decided to try to revive me with CPR. Somehow, it worked. I woke up with him pumping my heart with his hands. I never went to the hospital.
I don’t know if my heart fully stopped or not, but the fact that I survived that — and his many other horrors — isn’t just luck. It’s a miracle. One that I used to regret, but I am now very grateful for. Not me but my friend in 6th grade was sitting a couple seats in front of me on the bus. He moved into the seat across from mine so we could trade Pokémon cards with our binders.
Not even 5 minutes later another bus slams into our bus breaking our bus in half at the exact seat he was sitting at. Judging by the bent metal and condition of the seat, he would have 100% not survived that crash.Get dismissed enough times by enough doctors, and you learn to ignore your body, unfortunately.
In 2022, I developed a migraine that wouldn’t go away. I’d had chronic pain for almost ten years at this point, so I tried to power through it.
I powered too close to the sun. 15 days in, nauseated and unable to see clearly, I was taken to the ER.
Turns out.my kidneys were failing, and my whole body was shutting down. A decade-old root canal had developed an infection. With no symptoms. And was killing me.
I was in the hospital for almost three weeks. I lost 20% of my body weight, and it took a long time to recover when I got home. I briefly dozed off while driving late at night one time. I woke up just before a pretty sharp curve in the interstate. If I hadn't woken up when I did I would have driven straight through the curve and into the Missouri River. I've never been a religious person but I sent a little thank you towards the sky that night.Parked my car on my slanted unshoveled driveway like a lazy moron.
Sat in it for a minute, it stayed put. Walked outside, walked behind it (downhill), and literally a half second after i was out from behind it, all 4500 lbs of it slid right past me. Would have pinned me between the bumper and street for sure.
Now, I street park on level ground, shovel, salt, park, wait in the car, then only walk uphill to go around it. Nearly hanged myself cause I was stupid
So when I was around 8 years old,I used to go play at my cousin’s place. One day they decided to play as Spider-Man which is basically using net ropes(so in my country we use mosquito nets and they need to be attached with strings) to swing around, but since I’m a weak lil 8 year old I can’t swing it like my cousin and his playmates so I thought it would be a good idea to tie the rope on my neck and swing it that way
Luckily when I jumped of the pillow one of the babysitters saw me and helped me.
The only reason I didn’t die is probably because the pillow wasn’t that high and a babysitter,if not I would probably be 6 ft under the ground
I’m glad that I’m alive but 11 years after that I still find myself thinking abt that momentTyre popped on a major uk motorway, car flipped onto its side and hit the railing, then slid to a halt in the lane of oncoming traffic. Luckily it wasn’t rush hour and the cars behind us all stopped. An hour or two later and it would have been much worse. Us and kids walked away with bruises.Was on a 1000 mile cycle ride for charity. Made it about 900 miles, as a lorry overtook me through a small village in Scotland there was a hanging cable across the road which caught the top of the driver's cab on the lorry, The cable was attached to a telegraph or electrical pole (about 250kg) which was ripped out of the ground. Pole came flying past me sideways and smashed into the lorry. Never felt fear like it.My best was the morning that I showed up at urgent care, then a hospital, featuring a burst pupil, and a fever that should’ve been impossible to survive. I’d been treating some ugly symptoms with the gym for a couple of years, but, however surprisingly, working out isn’t how you fix brain cancer.
Shortly before that occurred, I woke up one night, to floodlights and tones. I felt so much pain and sickness that it seemed like I’d die, and I didn’t know the woman telling me to come with her. But it felt like it a dream, so I did, and realized as we were climbing into an ambulance that she was the medic I’d been running with for a long time. I still felt awful, but it was a lot better by the time we were on scene. I had to cut a car, and when we drove back, I was feeling well. I still suspect that hydrocephalus would’ve killed me that night, if it hadn’t been for that call.
For months before that, I’d been losing my radial pulse when holding still too long.
A couple runners-up:
-Very first house fire, as a new firefighter. Beams struck inches on either side of me, but didn’t hit me directly.
-While looking for the source of a fire, my officer and I discovered that we were standing on an incredibly hot floor.
-Anaphylaxis, from a handful of causes.
-Before my second craniotomy, medical aid in dying was on the table, as my cancer was expected to be far more malignant. I considered it very carefully.
-Armed, drunken redneck, who forgot he called 911.
-Drunk driver deciding to plow through the scene of a vehicle extrication while I was cutting the car.
-Multiple drunks with knives, and one with a bloody shard of glass.
-Severe autoimmune disease as a small child.
-Asthma as an older child.
-A couple of near-drownings, in the ocean, and whitewater. When I was young my first car was a junker.... The driver seat was held up right by a two by four wedged against the back seat if you took it out the seat went flat below the window line of the car
I was working nights and fell asleep behind the wheel and woke up to the roof of my car about 2 inches from my nose and the firemen betting how many pieces my body was in when. I politely told them to be careful I was still alive.
Walked away with a few cuts from the glass.
My car had flipped sideways on a country highway by a bridge ravine and gotten wedged between two trees. Apparently the other miracle is the way it was wedged all the gas drained out of the tank so I didn't go kaboom.Smelled gas in my house after coming home from 3 days away, rushed to kitchen to check the gas stove and switched on the light (as customary) on the way in ?.
It was a very dark kitchen with no windows and it was ingrained to just switch on the light as you went in. V lucky and I realised that the second I did it.I was just diagnosed with asthma, and only bought my inhaler the day before. I was in work and had such a bad asthma attack that everything around me went black and I said to myself ’This is it’. However, it turns out that I unconsciously searched for my inhaler in my bag and was able to use it in time.
None of my colleagues noticed anything strange with me and said that I acted very calmly the whole time. They were just shocked to see me using an inhaler as they didn’t know I had asthma.
If I weren’t to pick up my inhaler the day before, the story would’ve been different.
Never had an attack like that afterwards.Finally! My time to shine.
A friend and I pulled out of sonic and onto a shoulder of a road with a 60 mph traffic.
Before we even could think about what was happening, a damn 18 WHEELER hit us! Side swiped the entire side of the car, so bad that I couldn't even open the driver side door.
I'm even more terrified of driving next to them than I was before, and I think of how close we were to death, if he would have hit us an inch more to the right, he would have probably flipped us/crushed us.Back when I was a year or two out of high school, I was riding around town with three girlfriends. We were looking for one of our guy friends to see if he wanted to smoke with us. We hadn’t found him yet, and we were sitting at a red light (heading east). The light turned green, and then my friend who was driving said, “oh is that him at the gas station?” We all turn and look to see if it’s him, and then we realized it wasn’t, so my friend starts to go straight - just as a semi, heading north, blows through the red light. If my friend had gone as soon as the light turned green, we would have been t-boned and probably all 4 of us would have died. Definitely the two on the passenger side. I think about that every now and then.Was sitting in the backseat of a 1981 Chevy Citation completely still at a redlight with no seat belt on. A semi hit us doing 60-70 mph and all 4 of us walked away. I had 13 stitches in the back of my head. I have three fun theories 1) I am just too hard headed 2) heaven doesn't want me and hell is afraid I will take over or 3) you cannot keep a good man down. The odds are a mix of 1 and 2.
I have also been held at gunpoint with a 40 caliber Glock to the chest. I got out of that by fighting crazy with crazy. I finally reached up, pushed the gun harder into my chest and asked my ex if she thought that was going to get rid of me. She laughed and said she knew it would. I laughed and said, "no, I will be right back. I will make a deal with the first devil I see." It stunned her so much that she lowered the gun. I took it and left. I sat in my car for 15 minutes or so just shaking. She was untreated bipolar and I really thought I was going to die. The crazy statement I made at the end was just a last second hail Mary to see if it would work.Not me but 2 strangers. When I was living in a college town, my roommate was driving me to the store to get some beer. It was dark out with not a lot of light for the street. These two people started crossing the street and were right in front of us as our light turned green. I honked at them and they got pissed off and stopped right in front of our car. The next second, a car came speeding past us in the next lane. Had they kept walking they would have been hit by that car at about 40mph.Got clotheslined by a fence on a four wheeler right across the neck. These old peckerheads had a f*****g pot patch in the mountains, so they had roped off the trail not with a fence, but with a single wire that you couldn't see until you were right up on it. Just textbook hillbilly s**t. Anyways, because I'm deaf in one ear and the engines were loud, I couldn't hear my mom warning me, so I didn't tense up, and the s**t ragdolled me instead of breaking my neck.
This is incidentally also the story of why I don't ride on the back of any ATVs, bikes etc... My own damn mom nearly killed me, so I sure as hell don't trust anyone else. I drive, no compromising.Driving home in the dead of night. New moon, no clouds. Dark as f**k in rural Minnesota. Car in front of me is going 40 in a 55. I get to a straight away and proceed to pass. As I get into the other lane, before I get even with the slow car, I suddenly see an entirely black horse with a black Amish buggy behind it. No lights or reflectors of any kind. Luckily I managed to swirve out of the way and avoid an accident but I thought I was gonna kill them for a second.Driving at night on a dark, small backroad, trees on both sides. With me were three ladies, who were just telling me that these roads were so dangerous, because this time of year farmers come bolting down roads with their heavy -"who needs lights, YOLO"- machinery.
In the corner of my eye, between the trees, I see a little reflector. The reflector is low to the ground, but suddenly I realize it is moving towards the road I am on, and I brake the car in a reflex. Next thing I know I have to brake completely, because this gigantic dark unlit tractor-trailer turns on the road in a hurry. Nobody in the car realized it was there, and we were all scanning that side road, as we were just talking about the danger. If I would have continued driving, I would have driven the car into that thing without knowing what happened to me.
It reminds me of my colleagues in Africa, who keep telling me I should stop worrying about the trucks you *can* see coming towards you, and start worrying about the trucks you *cannot* see coming your way.Not me but my father. He was traveling on biz and a co worker gave him a free upgrade to a full sized sedan instead of the normal sub compact his office would rent. He got into an accident on 7 mile bridge down in the keys same day princess diana got into her accident and died. If it was for the heavier car and upgrade he wouldnt have survived the accident they said.
Although ball in the other court, if he was in the sub compact, would he had even been in the same place and time as when that accident occured?I have a bad habit of narrowly missing dying/being severely maimed while hiking. I do a lot of bushwhacking and I have had two times I was inches from being straight killed by a falling tree. The first one was extra spooky. Me and some friends stopped to take a break and we were using a fallen tree that was still attached to the trunk, making a right angel. My friends sat in the tree while I stupidly sat under it in the triangle. We hung out for maybe 15 minutes then got up to keep going. Right as we started walking away, the tree fell all the way to the ground, right where I had been seconds before and that tree was easily big enough to kill me.
Another big tree missed me by inches when I lightly bumped it and the top fell off.
Last fall I was stepping over a log and the ground gave way under me and I fell about 6 inches. I was standing directly over a sharp branch pointed right at my groin. If I fell Another 2 inches, I would have been in a lot of pain, 3 inches and that suckered would have impaled me in the groin.
Lots of hiking. I always tell myself I'm gonna be extra careful from now on then end up having g Another way too close call before long.I was sitting at a stoplight in a convertible when a taxi driver going 100+mph lost control of his vehicle, went into a ditch, and became airborne. His bumper JUST glanced off the left side of my head and my head became mush. If he had been a fraction further to the right, I would have been decapitated.Moose v. compact car
This was five days before Christmas and the roads were icy. I was driving home out on a highway at 50 mph. A moose trotted out from the treeline, I slowled to 40 mph, and then they ran in front of my car. The moose slipped at the last second before my Honda Civic went over them.
I made it out uninjured. The damage to my car was on the undercarriage and a puncture to the radiator. The moose didn't make it. : (
I got deer whistles on my car after that incident.Last September I was having my first motorcycle class. Driving around the lot in circles, you know. I had never touched a motorbike before in my life. For some reason I lost control, can't really remember how or why, but next thing I know I was slamming face first into a 53' truck trailer parked at a loading dock.
6 broken ribs, face completely split open, broken elbow, broken hands, internal bleeding, you name it. But the thing that saved me is the trailer. If it hadn't been there, I would have slammed right into a warehouse wall and that probably would have been that.I was in Thailand and I thought I knew better than the guides and went to cross the road and when I looked back everyone's faces were a nice shade of white and come to find out later that I did not notice the 18-wheeler bearing down on me that missed me by roughly 4 inches. So if I had left the sidewalk a second later I would have been a hood ornament for a truck in Thailand.I was boogie boarding in 10-15 foot surf at high tide. Saw a wave I wanted, as did another surfer, and we raced to get priority position and I was late.
12 footer crashed on my head and sent me to the bottom; which had happened hundreds of times in my life. But this time, while being tossed like a rag doll underwater, my boogie board and leash had wrapped around my legs twice and pinned my left arm to my side.
I couldn't kick or use my dominant arm to swim but it really didn't matter as the wave tosses you so much, you don't know which way is up.
The wave was holding me down and since it was high tide, I couldn't feel the bottom. I was running out of air and beginning to panic... I had suddenly a moment of clarity and said to myself, "if you don't calm down, you're gonna die." I relaxed and let the wave take me.
What felt like a split second later, I felt one of my fins on my foot hit sand, "THE BOTTOM!" I rocketed out of the water and took the biggest breath of air that was the saltiest breath of life. I climbed over the boulders overlooking the spot, shaking terribly, not because I was cold but realizing I had survived. I sat there with my board for about 15 minutes, watching some really good waves on a military base called Point Mugu. There was hardly anybody there, 4 of us, at one of the best surf spots on the entire West coast.
After calming down, I thought to myself, "the surf is hardly this good and big." I grabbed my board and launched off the rocks and rode a few more waves as the sun set.Fainting in the hospital saved my life. If I had been anywhere else I would have died. Was even on the same door as ICU where they took me afterwards.
I was in the hospital because it was 2-3 days after having super invasive surgery to remove a tumor from the inside of my spinal cord. They'd worked on my C4-C7, and I will always have an incomplete spinal cord injury. Anyhoo, my left side was numb all over and I couldn't move anything. I'd just gotten my arm to move that morning but still couldn't use my hand. I had to pee and we discovered id started my period in the midst of the chaos, so the lovely CNA's ran over to maternity and brought me back some of those mesh disposable after birth panties with with the pads made into them (as numb as my junk was, they were comfy! Felt like Always brand Infinity Flexfoam pads in the light blue box. I have no kiddos, but mamas if y'all want comfy periods, I recommend those pads!). They had me on this weird sitting walker that had handles like an elliptical machine and a little gate that closed under your butt, and you basically wall-squat in this thing. Took me to the bathroom, got me leaning forwards and kind of standing, we're cleaning up, I'm helping with my good arm, and the dizzy hits as they're pulling the panties up over my a*s. I remember her saying "oh no! Can you stand up straight as you can, and try to lean a little to the right? You're crooked and leaning, honey!" So I did. She asked me if I felt better, I nodded yes but said "but I can't hear anything" andddd next thing i know 3 ladies are holding me and one says "you passed out a little", THEN I was on the bed and the Nurse was doing chest compressions with one hand & reaching for the code button with the other. I just stared til she noticed me, then we BOTH started crying and she was freaking out apologizing while I was freaking out thanking her and hugging her with my good arm. I was surrounded by doctors and hadn't realized because I was so out of it. I was taken to ICU at 4:30am and spent 4 days there, until my heart finally got a little stronger and the spinal shock wore off and I could safely be upright.
That was 7 years ago. I can walk and my left hand works decent but it's still numb and probably always will be. I get dizzy at least once a day, but I just sit down and let it ride until I can get back up again. I have PTSD from the injury and hospital stay, but I'm grateful to be alive. I think about that night a lot. Especially when I do things we didn't think I'd ever be able to do again.
Dear everyone with an SCI who is not mobile: I do it for you ?I was working on my car in the garage at night, underneath, taking out the transmission (manual transmission). My work light was c**p, with frayed wires that would sizzle and visibly spark. Since I had to jiggle it a lot, I kept it near me.
I got the transmission out and on the floor, and as I was moving it, it snagged and ruptured the fuel line and gas poured out all over me, the sparky light, and floor around me.
I have never moved so gingerly, worming my gas-soaked body out from under the car, being careful not to touch the light right next to me, that thankfully did not spark.In 2014 I was doing this project of documenting and writing up Canadian Military monuments. I grew up in Ottawa but moved to the GTA and hadn’t been back in a while. There was a Leafs game in Ottawa and I was going to use that as a reason to drive up, stay with a friend and photograph the Cenotaph and Tomb of the Unknown soldier in downtown Ottawa. It was a prefect arrangement because my friend worked at the bank right across the street from the memorial. I was going to drive him to work and do some photography first thing in the morning. Day of my trip, I wake up absolutely sick as f**k. I was unable to even get out of bed. It was so bad. I called my friend and cancelled and just gave him my tickets to the hockey game. The morning I was going to be there, a guy went on a shooting spree and murdered one of the honour guard at the war memorial I was going to visit. The timing of my trip and my driving my friend to work would have put me there at exactly that moment. It took a while for me to reconcile the fact my life could be very different or over if I had not gotten sick that morning. Conversely if I had been there, could I have seen him coming and the outcome would have been different? I don’t know. This was 14 years ago and still lives rent free in my head to this day… Driving to meet my fiancé to sign papers for our house, and I am on the highway. From the other side of the highway comes a large tire. It bounces over the concrete median divider, lands about a car length in front of my car. Bounces over my car. I watch it be missed miraculously by every car behind me. A second sooner it would have been in my windshield.When I was 10, I fell into a deep swamp wearing heavy rubber boots at summer camp. I was a good swimmer, but no match against the weight of the waterlogged boots. I happened to fall in when I was standing right next to the camp counselor. If he hadn’t been right there to immediately haul me out, I almost certainly would have drowned.This is my close friend's story that really made me sit and think about life:
My friend worked at a county medical examiner's office where she would often sit at a desk near the front of the room to do paperwork. One day she just up and quit her job because she couldn't take it anymore (bad environment, plus was a LOT of working with dead bodies).
About a week later a coworker's husband walked in and shot two people- his wife, and the woman sitting at the very desk my friend sat at just a week prior. The woman at the desk died. My friend was almost shot dead at 20 years old. She doesn't regret quitting that job.My first 4 parachute jumps were from 3000ft. But the 5th one, I was with a couple of guys who paid extra to go to 5000 ft. My chute partially failed with the cords wrapped around my ankles. I was going in head first. Due to the rapid spinning the lopsided chute put me thru, I couldn't use my reserve even though I had tried to deploy it twice. My main finally popped open at 400 ft.
Had those 2 guys not taken my flight, my main would not have opened until I was 1600 ft underground. Or something like that.I was a very dumb kid and got into many self inflicted dangerous situations but the one that stuck with me was when i nearly choked to death on a plumb pit. Family had gone out for the day and i decided i did not want to go and just stay in and play games and due to some hardcore lazyness and stupidity instead of spitting out the pits i was swallowing them to save having to deal with them later short story even shorter one of them was way bigger than the rest and it got lodged in my throat and i could not get it out little 12 year old me tripped in a panic towards what was 100% going to be me being found dead in a couple of hours and slammed into the floor with my back, i regained consciousness with my dog licking my face very confused and vowed to never do anything similar againI heard a voice in my head tell me if I don’t go to the ER now I would die. I’ve heard this voice twice in my life. Both times I felt fine. The more I ignored the voice the louder/thunderous it became. Both times as soon as I stepped into the ER it lead to emergency surgery. One time I had the ER doctors come out to the waiting area to see me and rushed me back to triage. I didn’t remember anything after that. Woke up a week later in ICU. I was told I was very lucky to be alive - gallstones lead to liver failure. The second time that voice demanded I go to the ER I was 26 weeks pregnant. I had gone into labor and had no idea I did. I was informed if I had waiting a min longer I would’ve probably died and the baby as well. Again had gone into liver failure.I was driving on an interstate approaching an interchange where I saw several cop cars racing the wrong way at me down the ramp. I was so focused on where they were going to go and how I could get out of their way that I didn't see the car that was running from them barreling at me in the left lane. Thankfully I chose the right shoulder and didn't get in the left lane or I would have been hit head on, I watched in horror behind me as that car ended up crashing into a semi that tried moving to the left shoulder to avoid him. Had I been just a few seconds later or gotten in that lane to avoid the cops that would have been me. As if the crash itself wouldn't have been bad enough, I was in a tiny early 90s Mazda MX-3 and I know I would have only been wearing a shoulder belt because that car had the automatic seat belts and I didn't use the lap belt back then. Would have been my last day for sure, no idea what pushed my wheel to the right side but I'm lucky it did!While I was delivering pizza with DoorDash, a car drove up into the middle of the road. I honked at it as I was barreling down, but it didn’t move, so I swerved around it just in time to avoid crashing.He mistook me becoming unconscious and pis*ing myself as me dying.I'm driving home very tired at about 3am on a dark 2 lane rural expressway. I saw a flicker of light on the road ahead. I don't know what it is, a reflector, an animals eyes? I switch lanes and slow down to about 50 mph. A few seconds later, a giant WHOOSH of air, as a speeding van with no lights, just flew by me going north in the south bound lanes! It was a drunk driver! I took me a few seconds to process what I just saw and slowed to a crawl with my hazards on. This was before everyone had a cell phone, and the next exit ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS 100% of the time has a cop sitting at the truck stop. I drive quck to get his attention, of course this is the time he isn't there. I run inside shaking and can barely talk when I call it in on a payphone. The next day I told my Dad what I saw, and he told me about a story on the news where 3 kids were killed in a car by that same van a few miles down the road. The driver was cut in half. The drunk walked away with minor injuries. The van was white. That was the flicker I saw. If that van had been any other color, or had I missed that 1 second of light on that dark road........We were on a training mission in the North Sea just off the coast of Norway. We were told to go to the muster area to get ready to board the Ch-46's that were waiting for us on the flight deck. Now, each heli was supposed to hold around 15 to 20 Marines with gear (our alice packs) stowed underneath our feet. They said don't worry about taking your s**t off since its such a short hop to the beach. Heli's give the word to load up so they start counting us off one by one. 17, 18, 19, 20 - I'm number 22. They stop at 21. Guess we get the next one. Heli takes off and has trouble while taking off and proceeds to try to return to the carrier. No luck. It hit another bird that was now where it took off from and flips over and into the cold a*s water. Only 3 survived if I remember correctly. I'll never forget that day.I was going to celebrate my sisters birthday, but my family was going away on vacation, so we celebrated one day before I had originally planned to come over. I went to the shopping street in town, and then went to see them. The next day there was a terrorist attack on that street, about the same time I would've been there.
Although most people survived, there were like 200 cases of PTSD afterwards, and that in itself has been nice to have avoided...Fell off a roof while fitting a skylight, I stepped onto a hidden access hatch with no hatch lid just a piece of insulation shoved over the hole. Luck would have it the scaffolders had put up a scaffold on that side of the building that day. Instead off falling 12 floors to my death I landed on the scaffold on the 12th and broke my leg.By some miracle, flooring it through the outer edge of an EF-4 tornado worked. The only casualty was the fender. No I don’t know how we didn’t get pulverized by debris.Had a massive crash on my dh bike, my neck twisted in ways no neck should twist, shattered my very expensive helmet, and ragdolled for a while. My head dislodged a massive rock in the process (all caught on film) I should not have walked away with only a decent concussion.I found a lost cat and was going around the neighborhood, knocking on doors to see if she belonged to anyone nearby. One guy put down a shotgun as he opened the door. I’m lucky he didn’t shoot first and ask questions later.
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